Southern border is a humanitarian crisis

After a recent trip to inspect immigration detainment facilities on our southern border, Kansas Congressman Roger Marshall wondered what all the fuss is about.

Yes, there’s “room for improvement,” Marshall said, but they’re no worse than many of the refugee encampments the obstetrician has seen while performing mission work around the world.

So Syria should be our standard?

“They have showers,” Marshall, a Republican from Great Bend, said of the facilities near McAllen, Texas.

What he didn’t say was that the facilities are so crowded that detainees are allowed shower privileges only once every two weeks. Or that young children are being separated from their parents without knowing whether they’ll ever see them again — a violation of federal law. Or that those with medical needs lack adequate care. Even simple things such as soap or toothbrushes are lacking.

Conditions are so bad that even Department of Homeland Security officials call the situation “a ticking time bomb,” and express concern about the safety of their personnel who work there.

In her visit to detention facilities in Clint, Texas, Dr. Dolly Sevier, a pediatrician in Brownsville, Texas, said children’s quarters could be compared to “torture facilities,” including extremely cold temperatures at night with no blankets made available, lights kept on 24 hours a day, no changes of clothes, and no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water or adequate food.

Government inspectors reported in May that holding tanks built to accommodate 125 were housing 900 detainees, forcing many to sleep sitting up.

Marshall did admit to seeing hundreds suffering from dehydration, poor nutrition, heat exhaustion and other ailments.

But rather than address those concerns, he focused his attention on the Mexican cartels complicit in ferrying migrants over the U.S. border.

 “As a physician, I have to stop and add that the biggest cause of death was at the hands of the cartels, as many people die in the back of car trunks, overheated railroad cars, or while trying to escape and getting in bad accidents. Over and over, we heard of horror stories of people dying because of the cruelty and stupidity of the cartels, and how they treated the migrants worse than animals.”

So it would seem imperative that we not stoop to their level. And if Marshall sincerely worries about the conditions that push migrants from their home countries — as well he should — he should advocate for renewed aid to Central America — something our current administration has canceled — and stricter accountability measures for their governments. 

Instead, Marshall said the United States must “turn off the faucet,” and do everything it can to keep these people from our borders. As if the desperate journey embarked on by those fleeing poverty and violence had no root or explanation.

MARSHALL’S answer is to build more walls so that Americans are sealed off from the atrocities happening to our neighbors to the south.